Congratulations to our two amazing March Athletes of the Month, Megan Gramlow and William (Bill) Heinze!

Megan is a talented artist who creates gorgeous leather goods and she’s also a therapist outside of the gym. Inside the gym she was shy at first, but she has really opened up and found her place here. She is so strong and fearless, and she always moves deliberately and sets a great example for the other athletes. She is also quite fast and can run like the wind. She crushed 17.1, coming in under the time cap and in the top 5 Scaled, during the first workout of her first Crossfit Open season! Megan attends our wellness bookclub, free acupuncture sessions with Amy and wellness workshops and is such a grounded person, always looking to learn and share wisdom.

Bill scared me a little bit the first time I met him. After completing the baseline workout, he turned green and took quite a while to recover. I was really surprised that he signed up that day, but I shouldn’t have been, because this seemingly mild-mannered composer is quite tenacious. Two stories, first from Coach Jerik: “Bill always surprises me with his mental toughness. When he first started there would be workouts where he would give me what I call the ‘dead eyes’. I remember one time in particular where it was an EMOM with burpees in it and he was flashin’ those dead eyes at me, and I said ‘Bill, just do five burpees next round’ and he was like ‘I CAN DO MORE THAN FIVE!’ and by god, he did. Even when he is getting pummeled, he sticks it out and tries as hard as he can.” Coach Ryan added this anecdote from Bill’s first time at FTWR, which was “Barbara”: “He was the last one working but finished every rep. He had a look of pain on face that made me think he wasn’t going to make it but that guy has some heart. I was quite impressed.”